This post is an application to @curie's Community Building support effort. I, @sagescrub, am applying on behalf of our community @homesteaderscoop for Curie support!

This is our first time applying to Curie Support program. Thank you @allyinspirit for letting us know about it!

Part of Curie's mission is to help grow communities on the Steem Blockchain. Curie takes its position as a community witness seriously and uses a portion of witness rewards to fund community support whenever possible.
Curie's Call for applications

Homesteaders Co-op's Application:

What is your community / project and what is its purpose here on Steem?

Homesteaders Co-op is a steem community dedicated to empowering our members through a free online marketplace for sustainability minded folks ( https://homesteaderscoop.com ). Our marketplace allows our vendors to accept steem, sbd and usd for their handmade goods and ethical services. We take zero commission and charge zero fees. We do this because we are designing a platform built on trust and generosity, rather than greed. We do not want to profit from our community. Rather we want to embrace diversity and support mom & pop entrepreneurs.

Our community is run, in part, by a team of contributors that shares in the steem generated by our community account. Our contributors help to shape the voice of our community co-operative. Our contributors help to promote our community marketplace as well as our group of steem vendors.

Because our co-operative is run as a community and not as a business we are able to find the freedom to organize and make decisions as a community. As such our direction has so far remained focused on ethics and supporting our people, rather than pursuing profit for a few at the expense of many.

How much support are you seeking per month for the two-month period?

The fact that you want to share your income to help other communities in steem is very noble. In fact it goes in line with our desire to operate in a gift economy, or at least a hybrid gift economy (such as not charging fees to our vendors). We understand the value in giving - and not just wanting to take from others (desire for profiting from others).

We can make use of as little or as much as you feel fit to share with our effort. Either way, we will put it to good use! (see below)

How will this support be used?

We want a healthy thriving marketplace and community economy. We want to help empower generation of income for our contributors as well as our vendors (and other entrepreneurial roles that haven't been defined yet)! If everyone wins in our community we all win.

As a result of this motive, we have learned that one of our biggest problems/challenges is marketing our co-op as a community without compromising our ethics. We are at this very moment putting together a marketing plan whose initial phases will be ready to put into action starting in May. Unfortunately we don't have the plan ready to publish in this application, but I will share this:

The marketing plan we are developing is centered around unifying our co-operative's members and empowering them to take part in a holistic community marketing effort.

As such, and to answer your question, I would like to propose using Curie support funds to reward community individuals and members that take actions aligned with our marketing strategy (TBD very soon!).

To reiterate, our marketing strategy will empower individuals to help market their own businesses while at the same time unifying and empowering our community as a whole. Having some extra steem to reward those community members who successfully help to execute our strategy will be a nice reward and extra encouragement for them.

We will reserve the right to determine as a community who shall receive those funds and why, but we will do so in a transparent and open manner that can be reviewed by Curie and anyone else in our community or steem that cares. I, as the original community founder, will not be partaking in any of the Curie support rewards. I prefer that it will go to our community at large, especially those that make an effort to help create a healthy economy for our community.

Approximately how many users participate in your community or project?

We have nearly 30 steem vendors and 10 active contributors. There are at least half a dozen other steem community members that are neither contributors but vendors that are very active and committed to helping our community effort succeed. Beyond that we have dozens other members that are supporting our efforts either via delegations, moral support or in some other way.

How will supporting your community or project help grow the Steem community?

I believe that our marketing effort will be beneficial not only to our community but steem at large, because we will create more market opportunities and more value for steem as a currency.

Furthermore, the more we succeed, the more opportunities will arise to help our steem community at large.

What is your Discord name and number? (Optional - This may also be sent privately to @randomwanderings#9929 on Discord.)

@sagescrub#8830

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Our Free, Community Marketplace

Shop with pride: Our vendors are committed to sustainability for a healthier planet. As a Co-operative we are community run. And unlike other marketplaces our vendors are not charged fees or commissions. Vendors: Learn more

Support Our Alternative Economy

• Purchase handmade products and ethical services at homesteaderscoop.com
• Join the conversation in our Discord chat room
• Donate to our Fundition crowd-funding project; Help us keep our marketplace FREE!
• Delegate Steem Power: 10 | 20 | 50 | 100 | 200 | 500 | 1000

Logo design by FireFly Creations - illustrator & artist available for commission